Official Report: search what was said in Parliament
The Official Report is a written record of public meetings of the Parliament and committees.
The Official Report search offers lots of different ways to find the information you’re looking for. The search is used as a professional tool by researchers and third-party organisations. It is also used by members of the public who may have less parliamentary awareness. This means it needs to provide the ability to run complex searches, and the ability to browse reports or perform a simple keyword search.
Searching by different views
The web version of the Official Report has three different views:
- Report: this is the whole Official Report for a particular meeting of a committee or Parliament
- Item of business: this is each individual agenda item in an Official Report. For example, Portfolio Questions would be the item of business in a Meeting of the Parliament report
- Contribution: this is each time someone has made a spoken contribution to a meeting.
Depending on the kind of search you want to do, one of these views will be the best option. The default view is to show the report for each meeting of Parliament or a committee. For a simple keyword search, the results will be shown by item of business.
Search by MSP
When you choose to search by a particular MSP, the results returned will show each spoken contribution in Parliament or a committee, ordered by date with the most recent contributions first. This will usually return a lot of results, but you can refine your search by keyword, date and/or by meeting (committee or Chamber business).
We’ve chosen to display the entirety of each MSP’s contribution in the search results. This is intended to reduce the number of times that users need to click into an actual report to get the information that they’re looking for, but in some cases it can lead to very short contributions (“Yes.”) or very long ones (Ministerial statements, for example.) We’ll keep this under review and get feedback from users on whether this approach best meets their needs.
Searching by keyword
There are two types of keyword search:
- A keyword search without quotation marks will look for every instance of each word used and rank the results by frequency and proximity. It will also include variants of the keywords using “porter stemming”. This is when the search looks for the “stem” of a word regardless of its ending. So, for example, a search for [salmon farm] will return each instance of “salmon” and each instance of “farm” as well as potentially including results for “farms”, “farmed” and “farming”.
- A keyword search with quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase used. So, for example, a search for “salmon farm” in quotation marks will only return instances of that exact phrase.
Combining search filters
If you select an MSP’s name from the dropdown menu, and add a phrase in quotation marks to the keyword field, then the search will return only examples of when the MSP said those exact words. You can further refine this search by adding a date range or selecting a particular committee or Meeting of the Parliament.
More complex keyword searches
It’s also possible to run basic Boolean searches. For example:
- a search for “salmon farm” AND “Loch Lomond” will return only results which include both exact phrases
- a search for “salmon farm” NOT “Loch Lomond” will return results for “salmon farm” but exclude results which also include “Loch Lomond”
- a search for “salmon farm” OR “Loch Lomond” will return all results for “salmon farm” and all results for “Loch Lomond” regardless of whether they appear together
Searching by date
There are two ways of searching by date.
You can either use the Start date and End date options to run a search across a particular date range. For example, you may know that a particular subject was discussed at some point in the last few weeks and choose a date range to reflect that.
Alternatively, you can use one of the pre-defined date ranges under “Select a time period”. These are:
- Current session (all Official Reports since the current sessions started)
- Last 6 months
- Last 12 months
- each of the previous sessions of Parliament. (Selecting the information icon above the “Select a time period” menu will give you the exact dates for each session.)
- All sessions
- You can also choose to select a custom date range, although adding a Start or End date will mean the search automatically defaults to this option.
If you search by an individual session, the list of MSPs and committees will automatically update to show only the MSPs and committees which were current during that session. For example, if you select Session 1 you will be show a list of MSPs and committees from Session 1.
If you add a custom date range which crosses more than one session of Parliament, the lists of MSPs and committees will update to show the information that was current at that time.
All Official Reports of meetings in the Debating Chamber of the Scottish Parliament.
All Official Reports of public meetings of committees.
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Displaying 2078 contributions
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Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
If you do not mind, I will come in before we move on to that issue. I want to be clear in my mind about the prudent regime that Iain Gillespie outlined. Is that set by the Scottish Funding Council? If we leave aside the risk profiling that commercial lenders undertake, do you set that prudent regime?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
You have been very clear, thank you. I have one last wee question to finish off this section. We have heard a lot of chat in recent months about possibly encouraging Scotland to move to a fee model for universities, similar to what applies elsewhere. However, purely from a business perspective, I was staggered when I went away this morning and looked at the perilous state of some English universities—despite the fee model—because of the gearing ratios. The situation does not seem quite as simple when we start to look at the financial provisioning of education.
How actively are you having conversations with the Government to almost look afresh at how we all get a bit of something that we want, such as flexibility? I appreciate that you have mentioned multiyear funding, which is, rightly, a common refrain. How active are the discussions, not just in your tripartite group? Is there the same sense of urgency?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
Good morning and thank you for joining us. I hear what you are saying very clearly, Professor Gillespie. The probability of that risk occurring—that is, an institution failing due to cash-flow shortages or some other financial issue—is low. I am just putting that on the record. Is that correct?
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
I am sorry to interrupt but, in that case, how could you be clear in your earlier statement to Willie Rennie, when you said that you did not think that that was likely? I am sorry, but I forget the exact words that you used.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
That is exactly what I would expect to happen. The reason why I may appear slightly startled about that is that there have been dire warnings from elsewhere in the UK, particularly from former UK Government ministers, for example, who are proclaiming that, in their opinion, it is likely that some institutions may fail in England. I presume that those institutions are taking the same mitigation steps as other institutions. That therefore begs the question: in your opinion, what is different in Scotland from what is happening elsewhere in the UK, where that is considered to be a higher probability? I am not clear about that.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
You have given us a lot of content, which other members will pick up on.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
As public sector institutions.
Education, Children and Young People Committee
Pre-budget Scrutiny 2025-26
Meeting date: 12 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
Where is that set, then? Is that set in articles of association?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 11 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
Not only have we witnessed a drop in the number of international students who come to study here, but, as the cabinet secretary correctly notes, Brexit has brutally removed opportunities for Scotland’s universities to build international relationships. Does she share my concern that Scotland’s further and higher education sectors are suffering under a refusal from Westminster—from the Tory and Labour parties alike—to acknowledge, own and address the damage of Brexit, and that the best way to address that damage is to return to membership of the European Union?
Meeting of the Parliament
Topical Question Time
Meeting date: 11 June 2024
Michelle Thomson
To ask the Scottish Government what assessment it has made of reports that Scottish universities’ budgets have been impacted by £100 million due to a 20 per cent drop in applications from international students in the last academic year as a result of new United Kingdom Government immigration rules. (S6T-02044)
